Middle Tennessee/Alabama 8/31/02 - Dennis Franchione druidcityonline.com your guide to Tuscaloosa, Alabama and the Deep South
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Druid City Online's unique coverage of Alabama football brings you up close and personal with players and coaches after every home game. Click below to read pieces
of their post-game interviews ...

Dennis Franchione (Head Coach - prev. HC @ New Mexico 92-97 & TCU 98-20)

Coach Fran Faces the Media

this is a transcript of Coach Fran's post game media address ...

“They found a way to win. They kept doing things. It was almost a tale of two games in some ways."

“I don’t think anybody let up. Our guys kept playing hard. I think you have to give Middle Tennessee a lot of credit. We said all week they were a pretty good team and they played like it today. Their quarterback got a little experience in the first quarter and got going in the second quarter. We played about as good a first quarter as you can play. If I remember it all correctly … 22 points, 3 and out just about time defensively I think. Probably a play that hurt us, that hurt momentum of the game, was the roughing the punter that they converted into points.”

“If I’m disappointed with anything, it’s got to be the kicking game. There’s nobody in America that works harder on the kicking game than we do, and we broke down a few times today. Not good. Penalties … way to many penalties. Again, I don’t know what it is. We put a lot of emphasis on that, and have done every kind of punishment or whatever to reinforce it. I shouldn’t say punishment .. maybe up-downs … Those and the kicking game breakdowns certainly hurt.
“I think they ran 26 plays in the second quarter, and we ran 5. So that was a very draining quarter for our defense. 5 plays offensively, and I think we got 2 penalties in those 5. That hurt us, killed drives, and took us off the field, and put the defense back out there. The defense wanted to get themselves off the field, but couldn’t do that. “

“We’ve got a lot to work on, in every aspect of the game. But I was proud how they kept fighting hard and found a way. We kind of kept control of things most of the time. Lane Bearden really did some nice things whether it was punting the ball, making a crazy two point conversion, making a tackle or two. We had number of first year players play today, and a number of them came in a made big plays for us. David Cavan big touchdown catch for us … Mike Ziifle, Shaud Williams, Freddie Roach … no bigger play than Freddie there at the end. One thing we have put a lot of emphasis on is catches over touches on defense. Evidently, he’s been listening. He caught it. A nice run. He looked like a pretty good fullback there.”

“Both of those backs they have are good backs. They would play in this conference. I think anybody’d be proud to have them. We tip our hat to Middle the way they kept fighting and stayed after it. We admire them, but we admire our team for hanging in there and getting the win.”

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Carl Torbush (Def. Co-ord./LBs Coach)

Jarret Johnson (#96 Sen. DT, 6-4 287 lbs. Chiefland, FL - Chiefland High School)

Alonzo Empraim (#58 Sen. C, 6-2 303 lbs. Birmingham, AL - Wenonah High School)

Tyler Watts (#14 Sen. QB, 6-3 220 lbs. Pelham, AL - Pelham High School)

Freddie Roach (#8 Fresh. MLB, 6-2 238 lbs. Killen, AL - Brooks High School)